Beverages, such as beer and soft drinks, are typically pressurized with carbon dioxide gas (CO.sub.2) to improve their taste and appearance. The beverage is then sealed in a container, such as a can or bottle, to maintain the beverage in its carbonated state. Other beverages, such as wine, may be pressurized with an inert gas, such as nitrogen gas (N.sub.2), for displacing air which could eventually spoil such beverages. Prolonged or repeated opening of the container for consumption allows significant amounts of the pressurized gas to escape. The escape of such gas ultimately results in the beverage tasting flat, looking unappealing, and/or spoiling. It is therefore desirable to periodically recharge such beverages with a suitable pressurized gas to extend the useful life of such beverages.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,565 issued to Sturman et al. on Jun. 11, 1991, U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,012 issued to Grill et al. on Mar. 7, 1995, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,186 issued to Grill on Aug. 22, 1995 show various devices which have been proposed for connecting a single pressurized gas cartridge to a beverage container. Such devices are used for maintaining a selected gas pressure on the beverage at all times and/or for dispensing the beverage when desired.
In the above U.S. '565 and U.S. '186 there is shown a pivotal dispensing lever having a nose portion which selectively squeezes a silicon rubber member or flexible hose. A return spring biases the lever towards its closed position. One disadvantage of this arrangement is that the spring-biased lever tends to limit the size of the hose being squeezed. A larger flow cross-sectional-area of the hose is desirable for preventing excessive foaming of the dispensed beverage. Excessive foaming is undesirable because it increases the time required to fill a beverage glass. However, a heavier (i.e., larger-force) return spring is then required to normally squeeze the larger hose shut. Thus with a larger hose, the user must exert undesirably more physical effort to overcome the heavier return spring to dispense the beverage.
Another disadvantage of this arrangement is that repeated squeezing of the flexible hose by the nose portion may cause the hose to fatigue in that portion. If this happens, that portion of the squeezed hose may set and no longer naturally expand to its fully unrestricted state when the nose portion is withdrawn. Consequently, the resultant kink in the hose either permanently blocks beverage flow or at least acts as a flow restriction formed may cause excessive foaming of the dispensed beverage.
U.S. '565 and U.S. '186 also show that the hose has an increasing cross-sectional area of the flow path therein. This is intended to reduce the velocity of the dispensed beverage to an acceptable level for minimizing excessive foaming. However, the diverging cross-sectional flow area of the hose is positioned within the region where the nose portion of the lever squeezes the hose shut. This undesirably limits the effectiveness of the tapered hose to fully condition the exiting velocity and other important flow characteristics of the beverage to an acceptable level.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.